When Safe Sex Meant “Wear Your Helmet”

I am not quite old enough to have experienced the sexual revolution or the hippie era of so-called “free love” that flourished before the mortal fear of AIDS made everybody pair up and put on a condom. But I’m just old enough that all the porn and sexual literature of my youth was created in that carefree time. Porn from the ’60s and ’70s was all about casual sex with sexy strangers. There was a lot of that stuff actually going on, too, because why the hell not?

It was a simpler world in other ways as well. I’m not saying they didn’t have serial killers (they did) but they didn’t have 27/7 cable TV crime channels about serial killer victims. Which means, people still went hitch-hiking! Everybody who was young and broke did it: just stick out a thumb and you could usually get a ride as far as the passing drivers were going.

A lot of times, the kindness of strangers was sufficient; you could ride just about anywhere, for free. (It helped if you were young, female, and pretty.) But some drivers, predictably, wanted a little something. There was a meme, before they called ’em that: “Ass, cash, or grass — nobody rides for free!” You’d see it on bumper stickers, even. The idea, with these drivers, was you should be prepared to contribute a little gas money, or some drugs, or some sex.

That’s what this bit of “free love” 1970s porn suggests about our motorcycle driver: he handed his pretty hitchhiker a helmet, she hopped aboard his Kawasaki, and then he asked her how she intended to pay him for the ride. So she flashed her panties and suggested he find a nice quiet off-the-road pullout for some friendly sex fun!

Here she is, paying for her ride. Because safe sex with a motorcyclist in those days meant doing it with your helmets on…

Being a gentlemanly sort of biker, though, he let her remount his motorbike, before he mounted her for the actual fucking. Once he’s gotten his blowjob, he’d much rather “do it” (and her) on the broad and comfortable seat of his ride, than down on the ground with the ticks and chiggers and snakes and whatnot!

I’ve got to ask, though: is that a genuine shag carpet he’s used to upholster the seat of his bike? Or some sort of buffalo hide?

Oh boy, it genuinely really is! I swear, that puts the Astroturf in the back of Bill Clinton’s Chevy El Camino to shame! But at least you’ll note that the lady has actually removed her helmet, now that she finally has some nice safe handlebars to hold onto. Also, this is nice! In that era, oral sex wasn’t always quite so reciprocal. Just because she gave her driver a blowjob, it wasn’t automatic that he would want to lick her pussy. It definitely wasn’t guaranteed that he’d do a decent job of it!

She must feel pretty safe, though, because her helmet stays off when the action moves back down to ground level for some doggy-style pounding. I’m not sure where on that bike our well-prepared motorcyclist was carrying the picnic blanket, but fortunately he had one!

It’s bizarre to look back on a world of fifty years ago where giving rides to or accepting rides from sexy strangers — and maybe fucking them — was an actual thing that adventurous young people not infrequently did. But at least they wore their helmets!